Lighten Up
We all need to lighten up. Yes, there's a war on. Yes, people are dying and starving, killing each other and living on the streets. Yes, we all hate our jobs. But we cannot be miserable all the time. For one thing, it's counterproductive to actually doing something positive to end the killing, dying, and starving. (It's hard to be inspired enough to volunteer your time when you're exhausted from being depressed.) For another...well, we just need to have fun. Maybe it's insensitive of me, but I'm just really tired of being discouraged, disenchanted, and generally melancholic. And most pepole I know feel the same way.


So lighten up, people. We have a weekend coming up, and I want everyone reading this to do at least one (preferably more) of the following things:

• Fly a kite
  
• Play the kazoo
  
• Don't watch the news or read a paper for 24-hours
  
• Watch a Marx Brothers comedy, a Fred & Ginger musical, a Muppet movie, or your favorite classic sitcom
  
• Bake cookies from scratch and eat them warm from the oven with a cold glass of milk
  
• Skip down your street
  
• Go for a long drive and sing along loudly and off key with cheesy one-hit wonder bands from the 80's (Come on, you know that you remember all the words to Walk Like an Egyptian.)
  
• Speak in a funny accent for an entire hour
  
• Read the Jeeves and Wooster Stories of P.G. Woodhouse
  
• Hunt for interesting shells and rocks at the beach
  
• Take a favorite book to a coffee house and read all afternoon
  
• Have a milkshake, a sundae, or a banana split at an ice cream parlor
  
• Do something you loved to do as a child...but haven't done since you "grew up"